Feb 5/2025
The Migrant Experience - Worksheet
1.​ A recession caused the increased productivity of farmers in the Great Plains.
2.​ The stock market crash of 1929 affected farmers and their careers (income), as “Many
independent farmers lost their farms when banks came to collect on their notes, while tenant
farmers were turned out when economic pressure was brought to bear on large landholders.”
This caused displacement and increased the unemployment rates.
3.​ The seven-year drought caused a disruption in agriculture because it dried up many of the
farms causing farmers to be unemployed. In the article, it was known as the “Dust Bowl”.
4.​ The “Dust Bowl” was caused by a seven-year drought and many dust storms. This caused
many farmers and their families to move to California, as their source of income was affected.
5.​ They headed to California in hopes of finding more work, as California also had many
beneficial natural features, which gave them hope. For example, it states that the mild weather
conditions there allowed for a longer growing season and a diversity of crops, which is
ultimately good for the farmers. Also, this move was “Driven by the Great Depression,
drought, and dust storms.”
6.​ The natural features of California, such as its long growing season, contribute to the migrants'
hopes for better opportunities “For people whose lives had revolved around farming, this
seemed like an ideal place to look for work,” therefore they went there wishing for success,
and potentially a more stable and higher income source.
7.​ Route 66 helped the Migrants more easily get to California as “ Highway 66 provided a direct
route from the Dust Bowl region to an area just south of the Central Valley of California.”
This allowed them to travel safely to their destination.
8.​ They were called “Okies” because “approximately 20 percent were from Oklahoma”.
9.​ As stated in the article, most of the migrants were primarily from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas
and Missouri, and came from “Anglo-American descent with family and cultural roots in the
poor rural South”.
10.​The people mostly had quite conservative and religious political beliefs, as stated in the
article. This caused them to be “Ethnocentric in their attitude toward other ethnic/cultural
groups,” which “led to the use of derogatory language and negative stereotyping”. This
caused plenty of discrimination and poor treatment of migrant workers.
11.​As explained in the article, once the migrant workers arrived in California, they noticed that
there were more of them there than there was work to do. This caused some of them to be
even turned away at the border. The ones who were able to make it into California and then
found a job realized that because of the abundance of workers looking for a job, there was a
“significant reduction in the going wage rate”.
12.​The migrants worked for wages that were insufficient to support their families because “ the
available labour pool was vastly disproportionate to the number of job openings that could be
filled”. This allowed people to pay workers less because the huge demand for jobs meant that
someone who does have one wouldn’t be complaining about anything because they could
easily be replaced.
13.​“Many set up camps along irrigation ditches in the farmers’ fields”, as they had to in order to
cope with the scarcity of jobs and low income. They were also forced to follow the harvest
around the state, as stated in the article.
14.​The main functions of the labour camps were to “ resolve poor sanitation and public health
problems, help mitigate the burden placed on state and local infrastructures, furnish the
migrants with a safe space, and to protect them from discrimination and allow them to
practice their cultures freely”.
15.​The migrants used things like music and recreational activities to maintain their cultural
background by actively engaging in things like this (singing,dancing, etc.) because it
highlighted aspects of their culture and symbolized their lifestyle. For example, in the article,
it said that many of them listened to music belonging to the Anglo-Celtic ballad tradition, and
listening to music like this from their culture allows them to preserve it, as they are constantly
reminded of their roots and where they come from. These things help them to document their
culture and remember the stories of their lives and who threy really are.